26 United States The EconomistAugust 22nd 2020
2 tic policy choices have become militar-
ised”. Yet the paradox is that the absence of
military experience among lawmakers and
leaders could compound the problem. A
study published in 2002 by Christopher
Gelpi and Peter Feaver found that, between
1816 and 1992, as the percentage of veterans
in Congress and the White House de-
creased, the probability of America getting
into a military tangle actually went up.
Contrary to stereotype, those who have
never worn a uniform are typically more
willing to countenance intervention for
humanitarian or nation-building pur-
poses, says Danielle Lupton of Colgate Uni-
versity in New York state. A paper by Ms
Lupton analysing votes in the House of
Representatives during the wars in Af-
ghanistan and Iraq finds that lawmakers
with military experience are also more
likely to favour congressional oversight of
operations and limits on deployments.
Even if veterans no longer stand astride
American politics as they once did, they
continue to play an outsized role. That is
clearest in primary elections, in which par-
ties choose their candidates. Regardless of
whether they win or lose in November, vet-
erans are disproportionately likely to put
themselves forward as candidates in the
first place and to be selected by parties,
says Mr Teigen. A country founded on a fear
of standing armies has not lost its fondness
for those who marched in its ranks. 7Demobbed
United States, members of Congress
with previous military service, %Sources:BrookingsInstitution;CensusBureau *201821.1 17.5 14.5 12.7 9.3 7.1*1008060
40200
191020009080701965SenateHouseVeterans as % of adult populationInternship:The Economist is seeking applicants for
two paid fellowships in America. Each fellow will
spend six months as a journalist working with our
New York and Washington bureaus, writing articles
about politics and policy in the United States.
Previous experience in journalism is not necessary,
but applicants should possess a love of writing,
inquiry and debate. We welcome all applicants
regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, gender,
race, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation
or age. Applicants should send an original
unpublished article of up to 600 words suitable for
publication in The Economist’s United States
section and a CV to
[email protected] by October 30th.T
o the technocratswho preside over
America’s export rules, “national secu-
rity” used to mean anything to do with
weapons, particularly weapons of mass de-
struction. The technocrats’ job, and the
purpose of the export rules to which they
tended, was to prevent weapons and their
components from reaching the hands of
America’s enemies.
This started changing in 2016, at the end
of Barack Obama’s second term in office,
after China’s government announced it
would spend $150bn over the next ten years
to subsidise its semiconductor industry.
The plan put American national security at
risk, a council of technology advisers re-
ported to Mr Obama in January 2017, just
before Donald Trump took office. The sub-
sidies threatened to hand control of cut-
ting-edge chip technology to Chinese
firms, leaving America’s armed forces
short of high-tech supplies.
The remit of export control expanded,
leading to the present-day sanctions
against Huawei, a Chinese telecoms-
equipment firm (see Business). But Mr
Trump and his administration proved keen
to apply the term in other domains, pep-
pering it through speeches and tweets. The
New York Timesis a threat to national secu-
rity. Canada, America’s pleasant northern
neighbour, is a threat to national security.
Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for
president? A threat to national security.
The effluvia of Mr Trump’s political
agenda can be discarded, but the place-
ment of microchips in the national-securi-
ty scope, coupled with the administration’s
expansive view of the issue, has big conse-
quences. The algorithms that run on chips,
and the data that flow through them, have
drifted into its crosshairs too.
On August 6th Mr Trump invoked na-
tional security to order bans of two Chinese
apps, WeChat and TikTok, on the ground
that they have the potential to be used as
weapons by the Chinese Communist Party,
spying on Americans, or distributing pro-
paganda automatically at scale through
tweaks to algorithms that are controlled by
engineers in Beijing or Shenzhen.
This expansion of national security is
not baseless—there is no doubt that Ameri-
ca’s competitors are tapping into digital
networks to gain an edge. But it does pre-
sent problems. The portion of economic
activity that relies on the flow of data in,
out and within the United States is risingfast. If these data flows are seen broadly as a
national-security issue, then the portion of
economic activity that they underpin is
too. This may end up harming America.
That is because national-security deci-
sions are often characterised by secrecy,
unilateralism and top-down instruction—
when security is really at stake there is no
time for collaborating with allies, inform-
ing the public, or the pondering of techno-
crats. But this way of operating is antitheti-
cal to global trade and business, including
its digital slice. With an ever-growing por-
tion of economic and social activity
deemed a matter of national security,
America’s government must directly inter-
vene in markets and its citizens’ affairs.
Mr Trump’s executive order on securing
technology supply chains, issued in May
2019, provides a worked example of the
problem. The rule implementing Mr
Trump’s command gives the Department of
Commerce the power to block any “tran-
saction” that poses “undue risk” to Ameri-
ca’s tech supply chains, its critical infra-
structure or its digital economy. This
wording is so broad that “it could capture
under government control nearly every
transaction in uscommerce”, according to
ibm, an American computer company.
It is easy to hurt the industry that the
government is seeking to protect by unin-
tentionally isolating it from global mar-
kets. ibm said Mr Trump’s supply-chain
rule “would lead to substantial disengage-
ment of usbusinesses from global mar-
kets, reducing their competitiveness,
threatening usjobs, and hurting useco-
nomic growth”.
A mass of potential tech national-secu-
rity threats wait in the wings. The comput-
ers in American data centres are often
made in China. They run every service fromAmerican national-security
maximalism can be self-defeatingLingua securitatisFrom iPhones to
aircraft carriers
1